Because all the buzz they had, all the news articles they had, etc. were about the original version, so why should they worry about your insistence that your $1 spent several months ago entitled you to hurt their bottom line over 18,000 coins worth of goods in the game because you couldn't be arsed to keep it on your device? Besides, this game was nearly as "freemium" from day one, only it cost $1 up front. If you spent anything more than that $1 you still had it on your device since consumables aren't backed up by the app store. If you liked the game, you still had it on your device because your progress isn't backed up by the app store (and this game had a LOT of content). Nothing really has changed. Long term players still had this on their device (like me) so they're out nothing by the change. Those who get it now or re-install now can make up the difference between the two versions in a few days. They didn't go through and re-balance play, they didn't change the game economics, they added multiplayer, they added wide screen support and improved the UI, they added color blind support, and, yes, they added in a new form of truly optional IAP with the undos (icecream), but the only thing they took away from the original experience is you no longer start with 10K coins, and the unisheep now costs 8K coins. The only people who can find a reason to complain about this change have either never played the game to realize how insignificant 18K coins are (I usually clear over 1K a game at this point), or they're the sort of utterly useless carbon life forms who think their 1 to 8 minutes of labor to buy a $0.99 title entitles them to permanent kowtowing and support from developers who are lucky if they break even on their weeks to months of work. But, perhaps most of all, there are examples of games going freemium where changes are unacceptable from a good CS p.o.v. (the original change to Dark Meadow being the poster child), but if the online community erupts with epic butt hurt at every switch to freemium (or even percieved switch, see the free version of Horn for another poster child) without making any attempt to comprehend what is and what isn't being changed, and if it's worth their their netrage, then the devs are just going to stop paying attention. It's a modern day example of crying wolf.
Thank you! It was pretty much you the one who got our eyes open about the problem colorblind people had with Supermagical and we were happy to solve it. @C.Hannum: Thank you very much for your post! Please believe us when we say we are not evil guys trying to rip people off. Our game was a hard work of 2+ years (a very rare thing on the App Store nowadays where the short and not polished dev cycles are the norm) and we just want to be able to make another game just as good as this one.
I think youve misunderstood a wee bit for the sake of a bit of a rant. Why risk turning off your customers for future product and then hamstring yourself in what you are able to do gamewise to promote your freemium model, it sounds like placing your product and company in a bit of limbo. It's simple enough to make an alternate version that is tweaked to capitalise on the business model, yet still retain good faith with your original customers - why that is hard to fathom is beyond me. Promote the new freemium game from the original app, add in an incentive for fans to check it out. If you want to get angst about the $1 entitlement yawn, while it wasn't my point but seeing as you brought it up - anyone selling a product sets their price and sells on that basis, while I'm not going to target this game specifically, rather reply to your statements, it's not something that is legal anywhere else but the digital realm. It's false entry, pure and simple.
Don't worry I don't think that, and don't doubt you're not decent people. I just question this sort of thing in general, from my POV you could have benefitted yourselves by releasing a more tuned freemium variation and saved some of the debate from customers at the same time. No ill meant personally at all and wish you well.
Man of all the games to berate for going freemium this is not one of them. This game is sooo good! By reading C.Hannum post you realize that they added so much to the game. This game also has multiplayer and freemium is the perfect model for that because it encourages people to play the game without any initial investment.
Yeah, even though I lost the pet by updating, this is one game that did the freemium conversion perfectly... Reminds me of the Major Mayhem conversion...
Supermagical's update fixing some bugs with multiplayer co-op mode has been approved by Apple and it'll be out in a matter of minutes. Thanks.
And Supermagical has surpassed half a million downloads! Nothing to write home about nowadays, but for a team of 4 people like us it's a great number Still a long way to go compared to the more than a million downloads Pro Zombie Soccer has, but we are getting there...haha.
I'm going absolutely insane trying to find the missing money bag from the Stigma level! I've watched each floating tower bounce around for minutes at a time and I cannot see it anywhere! I've literally spent hours looking now, it's so frustrating!! Please help!
Turtle? I've bought the turtle that is supposed to let you visit all the shops without actually going to them, but I can't seem to find it anywhere now. How do I activate it?
Same here, I've literally spent hours trying to find that one last missing bag from Stigma because it was driving me insane to have every achievement I wanted except for that one. To the point that I stopped playing the game altogether, despite being a lot of fun otherwise! My missing bag is definitely not behind the big floating towers, do you have any other hints where it could be?
Hi! We took a look at the missing moneybag and I think we were a bit sadistic on this one, sorry guys... The bag is just under the tower of this image here, but because it is one of the musical towers with a secret level within, you need to touch the tower very fast and repeatedly until you see you grab the missing bag. I know...just sadistic. We'll probably move that bag a bit on the next version to make it a bit easier to find...
Supermagical has been updated with a complete revamp of the internal economy. We hope it'll be far more enjoyable now! And of course, the Versus Multiplayer update is coming soon too
Supermagical is now awaiting your (hopefully positive) votes on Steam Greenlight! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=183188020 Thank you!
